Case Study: Christopher House achieves measurable program improvements and collaborative benchmarking with Bonterra Apricot

Christopher House - Customer Case Study

The Chicago Benchmarking Collaborative (CBC) is a coalition of Chicago education and human‑services agencies formed in 2009 to share best practices and improve outcomes for low‑income individuals and families. Prior to the Collaborative, agencies could only benchmark against their own past performance and lacked common outcome measures, limiting their ability to compare results, target program improvements, demonstrate impact to funders, and track long‑term client progress.

With support from the Chicago Community Trust, the Center for What Works and Social Solutions, CBC standardized outcome measures, appointed a project manager, provided staff training, and implemented Efforts to Outcomes (ETO) software. ETO’s comparative reports and shared benchmarks helped agencies identify gaps, test targeted interventions (for example math‑language coaching and volunteer engagement plans), and monitor progress—resulting in demonstrable gains (a 42‑point increase in youth who volunteer “often/very often”), improved child‑development tracking, expanded membership, and new funder support.

Christopher House

Traci Stanley

Director of QA & Strategic Projects